Tuesd. seminar

[Cond.Matt. & Stat.Mech.Section]

JOINT ICTP/SISSA STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR





Tuesday, 9 March   -   11:00 hrs.





Seminar Room - ICTP Leonardo Building - 1st floor





Alfredo IORIO   (Charles University, Prague)





"Virus: A two-piece bio-toy for physicists to play with"





Abstract



I will mainly review two works, one on spherical protein "cages'' and  
topological defects, one on quantum effects on filamentous molecules  
that can model, for example, DNA-DNA interactions.  The protein  
"cage'' (capsid) and the genetic material (DNA or RNA) are the two  
essential components of a virus.  This will be taken as an excuse to  
point to mayor challenges for theoretical physics in the arena of  
biological problems, a story that is as old as Schroedinger's lectures  
on physics and life (1943) but still unsolved.